Same here but there are MANY times when nutserts, rivets and other fasteners are the way to go for speed, appearance, lack of heat distortion, flexibility (ease of removal) etc. J-B Weld even makes sense sometimes!

Rank VI

For all of you who lack the skills, location, and tools, check out Maker Space. It is a loosely confederated group of non-profit local CO-OPs. They usually find a cheap warehouse somewhere and get a bunch of tools and open the doors. You pay a small initiation fee and then a monthly fee. They have training and safety classes for you. The tools run from a full electronics bench, to wood and metal working tools. Most have 3D printers and laser cutters, and welders.

I have pretty much all of that stuff in my personal shop but I work away from home for months at a time. Rather than sit in a hotel room every evening and weekend, I pay $50 a month and have a place to work on projects. This would be perfect for building out the inside of a rig. You can learn to weld, or do wood working as well.

Rank VI

Dzus fasteners are more difficult to install but are better for holding panels on, there is a reason body panels on dragsters are held on by em and not rivnuts. Rivnuts are aluminum and pull out really easy especially after the aluminum rivnuts corrode due to touching steel. The only things i use rivnuts for is to hold my license plate to my bumper and my ditch light brackets to the unerneath of my hood. I definately wouldnt use them to attach a skid plate or anything structural. You could probably get away with using the rivnuts to hold on pocket fender flares thats about as structural as i would get with them.

Rank VI

I will let you in on an old secret. Get a cold case of microbrew, show up at the welding shop at 4pm on Friday afternoon with all the pieces ready to weld and go, and you would be surprised how cheaply and fast you can get it done.

Rank VI

I will let you in on an old secret. Get a cold case of microbrew, show up at the welding shop at 4pm on Friday afternoon with all the pieces ready to weld and go, and you would be surprised how cheaply and fast you can get it done.

Although not re welding, here's another Friday afternoon secret. Chrome shop owners, not that there are as many as there used to be, have their polishers do all the small hardware and bits on Friday afternoon in the hope that their employees fingers will have recovered by Monday morning.

Rank VI

Here's an idea. Take a welding class at a local trade school or watch a ton of Youtube videos. Don't let welding intimate you. Then look at Craigslist or similar for slightly used welders. I picked up an as new Lincoln sp175 for about $200 years ago. When you learn to glue metal together yourself a whole new world opens up. Careful though because you can now be that buddy that everybody wants you to hook them up.

Rank VI

I have a couple of rivnut or nutsert tools but I find myself using a few pretty basic tools that I made out of bolts, coupler nuts, washers, etc. Use wrenches, sockets, etc. and provided the bolt can move freely through the coupler nut and can compress the nutsert it will work. They are especially good to use in tight places.

Rank 0

I have rivnuts attaching my Yakima tracks to my low-pro tonneau cover. Skeptical at first (versus welding, or being able to put the nuts into solid metal instead of hollow stock), so thanks for this post. Gives me confidence it will all hold up when I finally get the RTT on top of my bed.